Boemo Diale

Boemo Diale (b. 2000) is a painter and sculptor who combines media to engage in a playful and dynamic historical dialogue with traditional art. Focusing on feminism, bodily autonomy, and the response to mental illness, her work remains light-hearted and bright. She utilizes symbolism and abstraction in her vibrant figures to draw positive reflections on heavy subjects.

Boemo grew up navigating different racial and socio-political structures in Rustenburg and the suburbs of Johannesburg. As an exploration of identity, generational trauma, dreams and manifestations, the artist’s practice is both highly personal and speaks to the broader cultural inheritance of South African women. Diale’s visual narration takes on a dream-like articulation, her figures often appear caught within the confines of a vessel or pushed up against the borders of her painted surface.

Voluptuous obsidian bodies and more traditional feminine forms take turns resisting against and then complying with the limitations of her iridescent primordial environments. Tropical silhouettes and vivid graffitied universes merge with Diale’s playful, bright, layered use of paint; however, beyond the light-hearted immediacy of her work lies a fierce questioning of her sense of place and ability to effect change through her art. Diale’s work on film, canvas, and paper is strongly impacted by her desire to connect with her maternal lineage and tell the inter-generational story of African women. Diale is able to introduce representations from her personal family archive into the whimsical interior scenes, creating a type of push-and-pull between the artist’s reality and her envisaged world.

Boemo Diale (b. 2000) did an internship at David Krut Workshop (DKW) in July 2022, after having met with David Krut at the Turbine Art Fair in 2021. At the time, she was an Honours student at Wits University studying Film and Television, and she undertook an internship to see how print could influence her practice. Diale's first show with David Krut, titled Can I Play? was held at the 151 Gallery in February 2023. The exhibition presented a series of prints created during her internship at DKW alongside paintings. 2025 saw Diale working collaboratively with DKW printer Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim on a new series of etchings and monotypes. Her work has been featured in group shows at David Krut Projects and, most recently at the Brooklyn Art Fair and in our New York Gallery as part of South African Artists in New York, our ongoing initiative to showcase South African talent in the US.